He said he would remain a member of the party, believing its "greatest days are yet to come"

In an email to outgoing state director Nick Demiris, Mr Mitchell resigned on Saturday saying he did not want to be a distraction for the party as it prepares to battle the federal election next year.

He said he had taken too much focus off the candidates and MPs.

"The fallout from the state election loss has had severe consequences for leaders of the party, including your fine self, but clearly for many the bloodletting has not gone far enough," Mr Mitchell wrote.

"To help assuage this bloodlust I hereby resign all of my office-bearing positions forthwith."

Mr Mitchell was the vice president of the Victorian Liberal Party, chairman of the steering committee, secretary of the Flinders electorate conference and membership officer of the Nepean electorate conference.

Mr Mitchell is the latest in a series of resignations to hit the party following the disastrous Victorian state election result.

Queensland federal MP George Christensen has identified himself as the politician at the centre of allegations about travel to South-East Asia, dismissing them as part of a vile hate campaign.

Key points:

George Christensen wrote in a post on social media that Australian Federal Police (AFP) had launched inquiries into him

He said the AFP had found no evidence or information supporting the allegations, or any criminal conduct

Mr Christensen wrote he would not be making any further comment on "these lies and smears for now"

News Corp Australia this week reported Australian Federal Police (AFP) launched inquiries into an MP because of trips he made to parts of Asia known for prostitution and drugs, and suggestions he sent money to bank accounts in the region.

The Prime Minister's office issued a statement saying the allegations were made by a Labor frontbencher and had been discredited and dismissed by police.

This morning, Mr Christensen, the federal MP for Dawson in Mackay in north Queensland, wrote in a Facebook post that the allegations were about him, but the AFP had found no evidence or information supporting them, or any criminal conduct.

"I have confirmation in writing from the Australian Federal Police (AFP) that someone made an allegation to the AFP about me, even though they 'had no direct knowledge of the conduct' they were alleging — that's called vexatious in my books," Mr Christensen wrote.

"The AFP have further stated they 'found there was no evidence, or other information to support the allegation, or establish criminal conduct' and, as such, they did not launch any investigation nor did they, at any stage, interview me about any matter, criminal or otherwise.

The AFP did not say Labor was beind the "leak" of "fake news"... but the PM ws quick tp point out the culprits, though it seems there were other "forces":

... such a vile and hateful smear campaign and I can only think it is because I stood up for my electorate against the powers that be, or rather, that were, on too many occasions," Mr Christensen wrote.

"They now want revenge and have sided with Labor in this smear campaign to try and get that revenge."

Scott Morrison's office knew about the "sugar daddy" allegations surrounding former assistant minister Andrew Broad two weeks before they were published, as the fallout from the ongoing scandal threatens to derail the start to an election year for the federal government.

The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age can reveal the Prime Minister's office was also aware the text messages between Mr Broad and his Hong Kong-based Irish-date Amy Keating were the subject of potential legal proceedings, after the Nationals MP asked the Australian Federal Police to investigate the alleged blackmail.

The latest revelations raise further questions about the handling of the drama at the most senior levels of government, with staff in both camps either ignorant or hoping to contain the reputational damage to the government at the end of a torrid year.

Peter Dutton’s decision to attack the leader he attempted, and ultimately failed, to replace in the dying days of 2018 has been greeted with dismay by colleagues, questioning why a senior minister would remind voters “of our worst days” so close to the next election.

Three MPs lamented the lost “last chance at a reset”, while another four questioned Dutton’s timing.

“Everyone is staying quiet for a reason,” one said.

“No one wants to remind people of what went on. We have an election in the next five months. Worse-case scenario, in the next three months. There was absolutely no point to this now. We are all trying to move on, but some just can’t seem to help themselves.

A Federal Government minister has apologised for "inappropriate" actions towards a female Defence officer, admitting he "behaved like an idiot" while on a military exchange program in Darwin.

Key points:

Liberal Assistant Minister Scott Buchholz participated in a Defence exercise last year

A member of the Defence Force complained about his conduct towards her on the trip

MPs on the trip also angered Defence by skipping events to go to horse races in Darwin

Queensland Liberal Scott Buchholz has told the ABC he offered an apology to the RAAF member immediately after she lodged a formal complaint about his conduct.

"I behaved like an idiot on a parliamentary exchange last year and I recognise how inappropriate my actions were," Mr Buchholz said.

"I apologised for my conduct and the offence I caused, and I reiterate my deep respect for the ADF and its members."

The incident occurred in August 2018 when Mr Buchholz was a backbencher, but just weeks before newly installed Prime Minister Scott Morrison promoted him to Assistant Roads and Transport Minister.

In a statement the Defence Department declined to detail the inappropriate actions that prompted the female officer's complaint, but said the incident was "referred to the Office of the Minister for Defence Personnel".

"Defence subsequently received an apology from the parliamentarian and is satisfied with the response," a Defence spokesman told the ABC.

There was a time, unimaginable now, when a cabinet minister and his wife were found by a customs officer to be carrying in their luggage a stuffed Paddington Bear when they arrived in Australia after an overseas trip.

The toy, upon which duty was payable, did not appear on the minister’s custom’s declaration.

And so Mick Young, minister for state in Bob Hawke's government, stood aside from the frontbench while the matter was investigated.

It was 1984, Hawke, just a year into his administration, wanted no more scandal, and Young’s sacrifice was disproportionate to the crime.

It was, however, a memorable example of the concept of a minister taking responsibility for impropriety, even if it was inadvertent.

Ministerial responsibility has rarely been defined satisfactorily. John Howard tried early in his term and lost seven ministers in less than a year for various sins relating to conflicts of interest and expenses and travel rorts.

The current Australian government, however, has turned the concept on its head.

With fast-gathering regularity, ministerial responsibility appears to have all but decayed to no responsibility.

Daily now the nation is assaulted by revelations of conduct that would get the cold shoulder in a shearer’s pub.

It is as if Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s homespun motto, “have a go and you’ll get a go”, has transformed in the hands of some of his team to “let’s have a go at having a lend of the mugs”.

And the buck stops where? Morrison - who admittedly wasn’t leader when at least some of the rot was setting in, and has weathered a rocky and anxious six months as leader - has displayed little taste for calling to account wilful colleagues.

Australia has rarely witnessed the level of political madness currently on display.

As the federal election rapidly approaches, there is no hint of a minister willing to step aside for transgressions real, alleged or imagined that would, in virtually any other time, have consumed a government.

Instead, you can just about detect an odour infecting certain halls of the Parliament: desperation and denial mixed with things decomposing in the shade.

Whether this wretched state of affairs would be improved by a change of government is not at all certain, though Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and his colleagues profess themselves appalled by the Coalition’s standards.

The bar has slid so low for so long it will take a mighty effort to drag it up again. And the historical portents aren’t cheering.

Well-documented voter contempt for Australia’s political class didn’t begin with the Coalition’s astonishingly frequent change of leaders, of whom Morrison is simply the latest.

The cascade of leadership knifings and subsequent political turbulence began with the overthrow of Labor’s Kevin Rudd for Julia Gillard in 2010, and Australians have barely been able to draw breath ever since.

It is instructive that of the 12 ministerial resignations during both Gillard and Rudd administrations from 2010 to 2013, every one was sparked by anger over the installation of the latest leader, rather than any wider principle. In short, there was no reason but self-interest. And whatever Shorten might say, he was a major player in each of Labor’s leadership coups.

Nevertheless, Australia has rarely witnessed the level of political madness currently on display.

Police only this week told a Senate committee that two ministers, Michaelia Cash and Michael Keenan, had failed to provide witness statements to investigators concerning their prior knowledge, or lack of it, about raids on the offices of the Australian Workers Union.

The police say they believed they had enough evidence to mount prosecutions, but had been told by the Director of Public Prosecutions that in the absence of enough evidence, there was no reasonable prospect of convictions.

Senator Cash has now declared she made a statement...by sending the police a copy of the Hansard record of her answers to a previous Senate committee.

Could she be having a lend, as Labor senators accuse?

Curiosity also surrounds revelations about the the failure of the Finance Minister, Mathias Cormann, to notice for more than a year he hadn’t paid for international air tickets supplied to his family by the Liberal-connected boss of a travel company that holds a lucrative government travel contract.

Cormann has now paid the $2700, but questions wafted across the globe to Washington, where Australia’s ambassador and former federal treasurer, Joe Hockey, now resides.

Hockey, a friend of the chief of the same travel company, Helloworld, was reported to have arranged for his embassy staff to meet a Helloworld executive as a subsidiary company prepared to pitch for a commercial arrangement with Australia’s diplomatic service. Helloworld is run by the federal Liberal Party’s chief fundraiser, Andrew Burnes, and Hockey is one of the company’s 20 biggest shareholders. The government says Hockey did not participate in the meeting, had no role in the tender process and had declared his interest in the company.

And what is it upon the air around Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton using a front page story, leaked to The Australian, as evidence that Labor-backed legislation on medical evacuations for refugees would undermine border security? What are we to make of it now the chief of ASIO has declared the newspaper’s story misrepresented ASIO advice, and that such leaking “undermines all we stand for”.

It’s only a couple of weeks ago, too, that more than a few observers felt they detected a whiff of something distinctly off about Liberal MP Tim Wilson using a parliamentary committee he chairs and turning it into a platform for protest about Labor proposals on removing franking credit rebates for retirees.

Others thought they detected the scent of things that grow in the dark when Dutton declared he had no “line of sight” over the decision to award contracts worth $422 million to an operator known as Paladin for security and other services on Manus Island.

The contract wasn’t granted to the Australian arm of Paladin, which previously flew so far under the radar it was registered to a beach shack in South Australia. Instead, it went to the Paladin entity that was registered to a PO Box in Singapore, a bureaucrat in Dutton’s department reassured the Senate committee trying to get to the bottom of the matter.

Dutton snorted that the whole thing was nothing but a distraction from Labor’s support for evacuating asylum seekers from Nauru and Manus, who he claimed included people of “bad character”.

That scent of fear: it was everywhere, and the government was trying to manufacture it.

There was evidence, of course, that the fear of asylum seekers might be turning voters off Labor: the first Ipsos poll since the Parliament passed the refugee medical bill showed a sharp tightening in recent days between the fortunes of the Coalition and the ALP.

But ministerial responsibility?

The last evidence of a minister taking responsibility for questionable behaviour was in December, when an assistant minister from The Nationals, Andrew Broad, resigned after being pinged in a women’s magazine for disporting himself with a “sugar babe” in Hong Kong.

It’s all a long way from the quaint era of the Paddington Bear Affair.

And by the way should you see an advert for the federal government "extra" funding for schools, pay attention to the small print: "CATHOLIC SCHOOLS INCLUDED". Looking at the reality, public schools get less and Catholic schools get more... Get rid of the Scummo government and its pileshit rorters... Get rid of Gladys and her pileshit minions...

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has slapped down a Coalition backbencher who used the word "Chinaman", following a backlash from the Chinese-Australian community.

Key points:

LNP senator Barry O'Sullivan used the phrase "Chinaman" on Tuesday

The comment prompted widespread backlash and prompted a statement from the Prime Minister on Chinese social media

Agriculture Minister David Littleproud has been accused of using another slur in his criticism of the comment

Nationals Senator Barry O'Sullivan made the comment on Tuesday as he chaired a committee dealing with plans to put a new biosecurity levy in place.

During questioning about how the levy would apply, Senator O'Sullivan was exploring other options for the creation of a biosecurity risk.

"Here's my question, there's a bigger chance of us having a biosecurity breach by us having a bloody old Chinaman who brings in his favourite sausage down the front of his undies."

Senator O'Sullivan went on to say there were millions of people who came across Australia's borders who posed a biosecurity risk "every day", and argued individual passengers who arrived in Australia by air should be subject to the levy.

Today Mr Morrison posted on the Chinese social media platform WeChat, praising Chinese-Australians for their "profound influence" and calling on Australians to "unite as one to defend our hard-won, harmonious and free society".

"The remarks made by Senator Barry O'Sullivan do not represent my views, nor do they represent the views of the Liberal and National Party's coalition government," he said.

"For more than 200 years, Chinese immigrants have worked hard to contribute new ideas, helped shape Australia's identity and made outstanding contributions to the prosperity of Australian society."

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten called on Senator O'Sullivan to say sorry for the comment.

"Senator Barry O'Sullivan should immediately apologise to the Chinese community in Australia for his comments in this week's Senate estimates," Mr Shorten himself wrote on WeChat.

"At the same time, Scott Morrison should demonstrate some leadership and ask him to apologise.

"There is no place in our society for these offensive remarks about the Australian Chinese community."